Sources and scope
This page collects workplace experiences, questions and discussions submitted by users. Dates shown are submission dates, not periods of employment. Individual reports do not describe the entire company.
Read the community guidelinesA retirement home: you won't be well-fed, but you won't starve to death.
Please note: “Low pay, lots of work, far from home.” Salaries are underreported, and it's a responsibility-based system—don't even think about getting overtime pay.
The relatives of those in power come and go as they please, with no need to clock in or out: “High pay, little work, close to home.”
The relatives of those in power make everyone watch her expression and mood at work. If she doesn't feel like doing something, congratulations—the higher-ups will dump it all on you. This includes “domestic sales, bills of lading, shipping and customs clearance, and problems with triangular exports from Shanghai.” She shirks responsibility, and congratulations: because you're in international sales, the customers are yours. Congratulations, you’ve “won again.”
The relatives of those in power often show up around noon every day—or, in winter, after hibernating until noon. Her SOP is to order drinks and wander around chatting with everyone.
Her extension rings nonstop at eight or nine in the morning. Sorry, you're the one who has to answer the phone. It's incredibly embarrassing. What time does she start work? Uh, uh—after ten! Awkward.
She comes to work at noon, and in the evening XX-director gives her a ride to dinner. She returns to the office at nine or ten and works until midnight. The higher-ups say she’s really working hard.
When she takes leave, if you message her on WeChat about export customs clearance, she won't reply even if she dies—but she'll chat away with others on WeChat.
The longer you stay, the less you earn. This is a WORK POOR job. Even jobs in Central Taiwan Science Park or Houli Science Park would be better than this; you could find one with your eyes closed.
There are only a few Taiwanese employees, and most have been there less than a year or just over a year. Those who can't leave have nowhere else to go. As long as you greet people with a smile and cater to the bosses—the husband-and-wife owners—when they're at the company, pretend to work seriously; when they go out, take a break too: chat everywhere and gossip. When you make a mistake, flood the group chat with frantic writing and posts until the higher-ups think it was someone else's fault. As long as you can “push” the blame, every mistake will always be someone else's fault. You can protect yourself and stay out of trouble: it wasn't me; it was all them. “Those others who had ability and competence have all”jumped ship” already!”
After work, international sales has to attend online meetings from 10 p.m. until midnight, listening to American “customers” ramble. The next morning, you must clock in punctually at 8:30. The relatives of those in power, haha, have it easy: they can show up at ten or ten-thirty as they please, “because they live far away!” Didn’t Lin Chia-lung take an early high-speed rail train to Taipei every morning to arrive at work on time? Who does he think he is?
Congratulations again! “Everything from developing the ERP, entering orders, issuing orders, handling customer complaints, quality defects, sales-assistant work, and even the Alibaba platform can be dumped on you! Why? Because it costs several thousand U.S. dollars every year, and if the relatives of those in power don't want to do it, you’re the one who gets stuck with it!”
The mainland factory has no production-control scheduling, its quality is a complete mess, deliveries are delayed, and customers complain. Congratulations again—it’s you who has to save yourself! Whether in Taiwan or the mainland, related personnel will all push it onto international sales. The more senior they are, the more skilled they become at shifting blame; they are masters at “pushing.” No matter how many mistakes there are, they are all the fault of international sales!
The only people who are truly hardworking, kind, honest, and sincere, in my view, are the two Indonesian workers on the production line. Why? Because they signed contracts with an agency and have no choice—it’s out of necessity. The Taiwanese workers on the production line are masters at “disappearing.” Where do they go? “They’re old smokers!” Who do they dump the work on? The two Indonesian workers! Why? Because they’re foreign workers! Ask yourself: will they still need to go abroad to work as foreign laborers within ten years? Half of Indonesia’s population is under 35; perhaps your next generation will be going there to “work” already!